Thanks Twitter for the #FakeLoveFacts Hashtag trend. I’d say I feel much better, but that’s not true. But it did distract me for a little bit, so that’s good.

I do talk about other things on Twitter, (cough! #Resist #TheWalkingDead) really, you can click, you know, like, if you really, really wanted to. I’m going to go finish of that quart of chocolate ice cream while you do.

I wanted to personally(2) thank you for all
the joy(3) you have brought into my life(4)
thus far. My high school years were
especially full(5) of your special touch with
an arrow(6). As I grew and matured(7) I came to
realize the unique role(8) that you would play
in my life(9). Every step I took you were
there(10). I have certainly been blessed(11) by
your love(12). It is at this wonderful(13)time
of the year that I really feel closest to you(14).
So for all(15)you have done(16)I want to express
my gratitude(17) properly(18). With a kiss(19).

Yours with Love(20)
R

(1) You cruel naked jerk(2) and I mean up close and personal(3) and by joy I mean years and years of personal anguish(4) if you could call it that(5) full of scatological moments(6) were you aiming for my forehead?!(7) tried desperately to out run you – you grotty little louse(8) of my personal tormentor (9) of pain and turmoil(10) shooting arrows in my back(11) I didn’t know beelzebub did blessings(12) love of inflicting acute mental and physical pain (13) commercially forced sentimental pink drivel (14) hard to miss you with this sharp arrow in my throat – you foul bastard!(15) Every last agonizing…(16) each and every arrow through my head, my back…(17) I got my own cross-bow (18) so I would watch your spiteful nude butt(19) would you like to know where?(20) I would Love to snap your little “bow” in half

Be wary of Google maps when they suggest a ‘faster route’ to your swanky restaurant date with your daughters (one cooking for you, one eating with you).

Faster routes in Google maps can mean potholes the size of large bowling balls.

Potholes the size of large bowling balls can mean tire blowouts/flats in questionable parts of Chicago at night.

When changing a post pothole the size of a large bowling ball tire in questionable parts of Chicago at night be sure to turn your car lights off so the battery doesn’t get drained.

When changing a tire at night in a questionable part of Chicago saying ‘Ok Google turn on flashlight’ to your phone works better that ‘Ok Google where the fuck is the flashlight?’ – the second will have Google autocorrect ‘fuck’ to ‘phone your ex who told you to stop swearing so much’ and no good will come from THAT conversation.

When flat tires won’t come off even though you’ve removed all the goddamn lugnuts and pulled as hard as you can, you can try calling AAA, and you can try the police to help – because questionable area – but do not try this on the night the Cubs get into the World’s Series, because all of the police are at Wrigleyville and not in your questionable part of Chicago.

When flat tires won’t come off, even though you’ve done every bloody thing correctly and you’re going to be late to your reservation using ‘Very Loud Creative Swears’ whilst yanking on the motherf’ing tire will, in fact remove the flat tire and send you a few feet back with a filthy tire on your trendy, I’m going to a swanky restaurant outfit and your ass on the equally filthy roadside, but you won’t care, because pulling that motherf’cker off was extremely satisfying.

Once a goddamn flat tire is finally off the car, two motivated women can get a spare tire on in less than two minutes because Bitches Get Stuff Done and there was a swanky restaurant waiting for us.

And just in case handling a flat Like A Boss wasn’t satisfying enough, the Chef comes out to greet us personally and gives us a tour of the kitchens because besides being cool and badasses, we also love eating exceptional food.

Topic 2: Dating or Dr. Really Strangelove and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Never date musicians

No good has ever come from dating a musician, so when screening potential dates ask first if they can play an instrument.

Playing piano might be okay, but plays electric guitar in a band is RIGHT out – do not walk, RUN away.

Never date Scorpios

I’m certain there are some very lovely Scorpio men out there, but do not date them. Scorpio in any part of their chart, just to be safe. Scorpio Moons especially no.

No more Latino men – no, no, no, no, and Hell no. Write this down, because apparently this is a smooth spot in your brain – NO Latino men. Mexican, Peruvian, Ecuadorian, Spanish doesn’t manner, don’t do it. It will never end well.

Catholic Latino men who adore their mother. Just don’t. You can’t even. You will never ever even. You will be switched from Madonna to Whore and back so many times you will get whiplash. You will swear too much, smile too little, never cook as well, be respected too much or way too little. You will never be good enough. This is a fact, at least for you, it is a fact. For the love of your remaining sanity and shattered ego, don’t go there.

Scorpio Latino Musician? Run.

Never date Irishmen, especially if they’re poets. No good ever came from dating an Irish poet. Write that down in your journal till you remember it.

Basically dating is a bad idea. Dating will invariably lead to adding another category to the list of men you are never to date again.

You might think being a yoga teacher with long curly hair would attract suitable men to date, it does not. It does however, attract all manner of suggestions regarding flexibility and comments about anatomy.

Topic 3: Approaching Interesting Men with Beards in restaurants

DO IT. They could turn out to be a really cool band and invite you to come do yoga with them and go to their gigs

Do not date them – see above. Hang with them, do yoga with them, be generally be cool around them.

Topic 4: Retail / Food therapy or Eat, Read, Love

Buy the sweater, it will be warm and soft and gorgeous, feel like a hug and it will never judge you, tell you to smile more or to be more ladylike.

Buy the book(s), they will be interesting, expand your thinking and always there for you and will never ignore you when you need them most.

Buy infinity scarf with e.e. cumming’s poetry i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) all over it because poetry that some men write is so much better than most men.

Reread Neruda, because poetry… so much better than actual men.

Buy the fingerless gloves with that section from Wuthering Heights that you love because well-written words, so much better than…. men.

Buy dessert, eat it whenever the fuck you want, and love every moment of eating it, because life is short and often needs chocolate. Also chocolate never judges you, ever.

Movies – Go to them. Find a friend, go alone. Put butter on your popcorn, eat it all. Movies where the creeptastic man meets a very satisfying end are especially good.

Also, yoga. Do some yoga, get sweaty, fall on your ass, get up again. Repeat.

Fetal position, rocking back and forth muttering things to the dog – am certain no will ever love me, that my hair will never behave respectably, that my feet are just plain ugly and I should just give up now and become a cat lady

Cool. I’m, like totally cool. No, actually I’m so important and so busy with all my important busy life things that I have no time to do anything buy my very important things that really just take up all of my time. Lord I just have no time to be worried about such trivial things! Am important, very busy person, anybody can see that, also I like wearing my pants inside out.

Fuck it. Fuck absolutely all of it. Fuck all of it somuch that I’m going to sit here and eat ice cream – NOT low fat or froyo, but FULL fat Ben and Fucking Jerry’s ice cream, AND I’m going to eat it straight from the container sitting on the couch at 11pm, because I can, okay??? Am so damn happy that no man will ever see me naked again that I’m gonna sit here and my godamm ice cream, okay?

Obsessively checking WhatsApp to see who’s online and when. Not because I care, I just happened to pick up my phone. Am totally in control here, and do not care when anyone is on line and not sending me messages. Do not care even a tiny bit. Absolutely did not just check my messages just now.

Hang out with hot 30somethings. Decide right after gorgeous blonde in short shorts says, hey you’re my mom’s age, you look good and that’s what’s really important that I need to hang with my 50something friends maybe a little more.

Make empowered decision to go see all Marvel/Xmen/Star Trek movies by myself, because dammit I am an empowered and free woman who needs no man to go to movies with. Also I can eat all the damn popcorn myself.

Buy a parrot, because… because honestly I’ve got nothing here, but I did buy a parrot who is learning to dance and sing to Brittany Spear’s Work Bitch, so that’s pretty entertaining.

Revisit the ‘Empowered/Fetal/Fuck All of Things’ Cycle for a few more rounds.

Journal, Meditate just like Mastin Kipp says I’m suppose to, because you know he’s a 30something who is apparently enlightened, or at least has a book and a blog and sends messages on YouTube from Maui on how to cope with heartbreak. (aside – he would likely frown benevolently on a few of my other coping mechanisms)

Fail spectacularly and not being petty and bitter. Journal about greater than average pettiness and bitterness. Meditate on super charged petty bitter non enlightened behavior that would disappoint Mastin.

Wonder if I should share any of this with my therapist, but then worry she will think less of me, then wonder if maybe I am not approaching this correctly. Decide I’m fine, and will tell my therapist so.

Fuck all the thoughts about what to do on your birthday. Will pretend to ignore the damn thing this year, and secretly stuff face with cupcakes and Ben and Jerry’s.

Re-examine feet. Decide they are the ugliest feet that have ever existed. Wear open toed sandals anyway, because Fuck it, no one will ever see me naked again, so why worry about ugly feet. Right moving on.

Wonder why you have to write all this shite only after midnight, and not in the morning like normal writers.

Debate major hair cut vs finally embracing dreads. Buy more hair product because bank account still had a few dollars in it. Decide that stress increases frizz, and hair products with cool smelling ingredients will decrease stress.

Write self depreciating blog, spends hours writing and rewriting it, finding pictures and clever gifs and memes instead of sleeping, because sleep is for wimps and people who have to have passable hair, pretty toes, and who don’t eat Ben and Jerry’s at midnight, who don’t need to sing Carrie Underwood in the car.

And I do, have both ears that is, so romantically it’s really not so bad, right?

I went to see “Hello, My Name is Doris” with two friends in sympathetic life situations. Specifically, we are over 50 and in various stages of divorce and dating. These are my movie peeps, also known as the women I see movies with when I’m not being empowered badass and taking myself to a movie dammit. Right, so the movie. The previews were shamelessly targeting those of us whose love and life situations might involve fantasies about a metaphoric or actual sledgehammers.

Really, I want a sledgehammer. I really, really, really do. I would also like Jake Gyllenhaal to come help me swing it around.

Both movies are about dismantling your life and possibly moving on. Possibly, not happily-ever-after moving on, just the moving on part.

Back to Doris and Van Gogh, who is never actually mentioned directly in the movie, but is used in the Our Love Lives Don’t Suck Too Much comment, “at least we have both ears”. Doris is going through a major life change and developes a crush on a much (30+ years-isn) younger coworker. I spend the movie deciding if I felt empowered, depressed, mortified, embarrassed or simply grateful for both ears.

TWO pairs of glasses

In regards to dating younger men, I’ve been there, but just 16years younger (#ThatWasAwesome). Still, Doris resonated with me. I spent my time oscillating between ‘insane old lady’ and ’empowered fabulous woman’. I still do.

I spend my work life and much of my leisure time with fabulous 30(ish) yoga teachers and half the time I forget I’m 20 years older or at least pretend no one notices, and half the time I think, what the hell am I doing here? Surely someone will figure out I’m much too old to be doing this sort of thing. The teachers who are my age are in stable married relationships, and then there’s me.

Doris is fun and open and spunky, but her younger friends and coworkers while quite fond of her, describe her as ‘weird, but in a good way’. And then there’s me.

In the end I will say this about the movie, Sally Field does an amazing job, that and that at least I have both my ears.

Go to a movie she said, get yourself out of this funk she said. Better than my plan of smashing possibly valuable antique china against the garage door, and throwing everything into garbage bags and slinking off to go live a quiet hermit like existence and never speaking to anyone ever again, plan. Ever again, except people I like, except for Fezzik, because he’s the best, except my students and coworkers. Okay, never again speaking to people who annoy the bejesus* outta me.

see, I didn’t make it up

*Bejesus, is a lesser known, but fairly important hormone found in most humans in varying amounts depending on varying factors. It is excreted or lost in times of agitation, surprise or stress, as in “you scared the bejesus outta me!” Similar to, but still distinct from ‘crap’, which has an entirely different odour when it is ‘scared outta you’. It has been known to stimulate the ‘Fuck This-FT’ response which is responsible for the ‘Clean all the Shit Syndrome-CSS’, ‘Send Incoherent Emails your Ex Disorder-SIEED’ (except he’s not really your ex, because you have to be a ‘thing’ before you can be an ‘ex-thing’ and he wasn’t into being a ‘thing’, and would only state (under great duress) that your ‘thing’ was slightly more than friends with occasional benefits, odd movie dates, with witty and occasionally racy texting on the side kind of ‘thing’), and the subsequent ‘Sound Like a Fecking Idiot Syndrome-SLFIS’ which has been linked to ‘Eating the Whole Goddamn Box of Cookies’, ‘Hating All of Your Clothes’, and can include side effects such as ‘web searches for plastic surgery’, ‘installing dating apps’, ‘uninstalling dating apps’ , ‘application of detoxifying lime green facial masks’, ‘having existential conversations with the cat’, can also trigger Hamster Wheel thought brain override. Bejesus is not for everyone. Ask your doctor if Bejesus is right for you. If you’re a woman in the United States ask your white male congressman if Bejesus is right for you, then ask your white male conservative Christian religious leader if Bejesus is right for you, then pole your white male relatives to see if Bejesus is right for you, then consider why you need Bejesus in the first place, and why aren’t you happy enough in your subservient societal role, and let go of all this ‘Uppity Woman Bullshit’, and get your ass back in the kitchen and just make the men in your life a goddamn sandwich, like God intended.

Movie. Great idea. Quentin Tarantino movie, even better. There will be no covert love story, no sweeping music, no heartfelt redemption, just fabulous gut and brain splattering violence, the very darkest humour, and Samuel (Fucking) L. Jackson, who is even awesome without is testicles (oops, spoiler alert).

totally

So you go to a Saturday night movie by yourself because you’re a strong independent woman who makes sandwiches for nobody, and it’s awesome, running into people you know, not having to share your popcorn, drinking whatever you want to drink and sitting wherever you want to. Which turns out to be basically the same amount of popcorn, same drink and the same spot in the theatre, but you don’t even notice this because you are having a fabulous time dammit, and it’s Quentin Tarantino, could you be any more clever? No, I don’t think so. So there you are, in the same seats, eating your popcorn, with your jacket on the seat beside you, because not sharing is fucking awesome, and then an eHarmony add!? e-fucking-Harmony? Can they actually do that? Which triggers the Bejesus cycle and it takes half a bag of popcorn, 10 twizzlers, and 3 violent movie trailers before you get back to your self actualized independent woman who gives zeros fucks about all the adorable couples surrounding her in the movie theatre.